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Sinking and discovery of The South Australian
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On Tuesday 12th February 1889, The South Australian sailed from Cardiff in fine weather bound for Rosario on the River Parana in Argentina loaded with railway lines and fish plates. As she tried to clear the Bristol Channel she ran into a WSW gale with high seas and shortly after 11pm on 13th she sustained damage forward. Conditions did not improve and at 1am on 14th Captain Arthurs decided to run before the wind to Penarth Roads. The pumps were tried and the vessel found not to be making any water. However a rumbling noise was heard below and the second mate and a seaman were sent to investigate. In the between deck they found that the cargo at the after end was secure but, sparks were to be seen about the main hatch and there were noises which they thought were the rails striking against each other. The captain then ordered the seaman and the carpenter to go into the between deck forward. There they found the cargo moving in a body as the ship rolled. Some stanchions had broken and the wooden shores that held the rails against the deck above had fallen. The carpenter clambered over the cargo as far as the main hatch, where the cargo was all adrift and, he said, flying about. He could hear water rushing, and though he could not see it, thought that the cargo port on the starboard side had been knocked out. The second mate then looked into the fore hold, where in the light of a candle he thought he could see 7 to 8 feet of water.
The second mate then went on deck, where he told the crew to cut away the boats as the ship was sinking. He reported to the captain on the poop, who brought the ship to the wind on the starboard tack so as to bring the loading-port above water. Looking over the side he and the mate saw that the loading-port was indeed pushed out by six inches. The captain tried to place a bed blanket over the gap but failed. He then gave orders for the port lifeboat to be launched but the crew were already doing this. They then got into it, called to the master to jump or he would be left behind, and he leapt for his life. Whilst fending off all the oars but one were broken, as the ship was plunging and rolling heavily in a cross sea. When the painter was cut, the boat drifted astern where two men were seen on the poop. The boat was close to the vessel and William Heddles, who had been at the wheel, jumped and was picked up, but James Timbrell the Jamaican cook, would not even though he was told to use one of the lifebuoys. He was heard shouting as the boat slipped further behind the ship. After a while all that could be seen of the South Australian were her top-gallant and royal yards silhouetted against the sky and she was undoubtedly sinking. The survivors in the lifeboat managed to rig a quilt on a broken oar as a sail and ran before the wind until about noon when they were rescued near the Helwick Lightship by the schooner Spray. They were transferred to the steam trawler Flying Scotchman and landed at Swansea. |
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In the late 1980s members of Ilfracombe & North Devon Sub Aqua Club, alerted by a local fisherman, discovered a pile of railway lines and some remains of a wooden vessel at 45m on the edge of the Stanley Banks, 3m NE of Lundy. The wreck site was dived for some years without anyone having any idea of it's origins ..... but it was home to some large lobsters.
In January 1999 the club was contacted by Alan Platt, of Saline, Dunfermline, a retired power station engineer with a passion for, and an extensive knowledge of, composite sailing ships. He had heard through some diver grapevine that Ilfsac were diving a pile of railway lines. He sent a meticulous account of the loss of the South Australian together with many details of her construction and also revealed the story of her sister ship the City of Adelaide. A quest began to prove the identity of the railway line wreck on the Stanley Banks. At first it seemed unlikely that the wreck was the South Australian because none of the vital artifacts could be found and the search for the South Australian was widened to much of the sea area around Lundy ..... but with no result. The arrival of trimix diving in the club in 2003 provided much clearer heads and longer endurance at 45m, and evidence of iron frames was found at the base of the rail stack. A piece of hull section with signs of frames attached was found at one side of the rail stack by Ilfsac diver Phil Durbin in 2004. Alan Platt suggested that proof positive would be to find the 'yellow metal' (a brass alloy) bolts that were used to attach the hull planking to the frames of a composite ship. A visit to the City of Adelaide in Irvine provided photographs of the key frame structures and measurement of the spacing of the bolts holding her planking to her frames was made. In the summer of 2005, Keith Denby, an Ilfsac diver, in the company of Dan Stevenson, an underwater video cameraman from Clifton BSAC, found and filmed the bolts and other significant structures on the wreck and the proof positive was obtained that the Stanley Banks railway line wreck was indeed the South Australian. |
South Australian home - Archaeology project - City of Adelaide